Running A Session As Game Master

The Game Master console is the only station that can change the running simulation. Before launch it stages a mission; after launch it becomes the panel you run the session from. This entry covers the second part — getting to launch is in Running Your First Session.

Session control

Three controls sit together, and they mean exactly what they say:

• Save — writes the current state of the mission to a saved game. Between missions you can reload it from the Saved Games tab. Save before you try anything you might want to undo, because nothing else will undo it.
• Pause — freezes the simulation. Every console stays connected and stays displaying; nothing moves. This is your tool for a rules question, a comfort break, or catching up on what four people asked at once. Press it again to carry on.
• End — ends the mission, once you confirm, and returns the server to staging. Consoles drop back to their waiting state. A mission with an epilogue holds on it first while your console shows the after‑action report; press CONTINUE under Session Status to move on.

The tabs

The right‑hand tab column changes what the main panel shows. Some tabs only appear once a mission is running, and two only between missions.

Working with objects

Select an object in the Active Objects tree, or click it on the radar, and its summary fills the left of the tab: what it is, its shields, hull and energy, and what it is doing and targeting. Edit opens its detail panel, tabbed across general information, position and rotation, internal and external components, cargo and ordnance. Everything there is live: change a value and the simulation has it immediately.

On any hardpoint, internal or external, you can swap the component installed, set its state, integrity and level, and fit upgrades into its slots.

Three per‑object actions are worth knowing:

• Focus centers your radar on it — the fastest way to see what the crew is describing.
• Edit opens the full detail panel.
• Comms opens your conversation with it, which is how you play anything that talks.

Because the edits are live and unversioned, save the session before restructuring anything substantial.

Giving orders

An NPC ship's summary carries its orders. Hold, Hold Position and Active set how it behaves: stand down, stay put but fire, or carry on with its own business. Attack, Defend, Intercept, Dock and Go To each need a target: press the button, then pick the target on the radar or in the tree (for Go To, a spot on the radar). Choosing a tag from the list under the buttons first aims Attack, Defend, Intercept or Dock at everything carrying that tag instead. Depart undocks it.

Below those, Heal and Harm move its integrity by 10%, Invincible and Immortal protect it, and Despawn and Destroy take two clicks, so a stray one does not cost you a ship.

Spawning

Spawn Controls takes a faction, a class, a Role — the part the ship's commander plays, or Class Default for whatever the class's crew names — a name and a range. SPAWN puts the ship that many kilometers from the object you have selected, or from the player ship when nothing is. To place it exactly, drag the target handle onto the Local radar, or right‑click empty space there and choose Spawn here.

Comms

The comms panel shows active channels and the traffic on them, and lets you send as any object the crew can reach. Two GM‑only pieces sit beside it:

• Comms Intercept hands the NPCs' side of the conversation to you. While it is on, when the crew says something to an NPC that its dialog has no set answer for, the NPC waits for you instead of giving a stock reply. Its row in the Active Objects tree lights up; open its Comms and answer as that ship.
• GM Intercom is a voice channel to your crew that is outside the fiction — for "we're taking a ten minute break", not for the story. It appears only when the GM console is opened over the secure address (https, port 1866), because browsers allow a microphone only on a secure page.

Radar

The GM radar shows the whole map, not one vessel's contacts. It shows weapon fire, and a line from each ship to whatever it is targeting: amber for an NPC, cyan for a player ship. With it you can generally see what is happening without asking anyone. Selecting a contact on the radar selects the same object in the tree.

The Local view has more tools:

• Hover over a contact for a card with its faction, hull, shields, current task and target.
• Right‑click for a menu. On a contact it offers orders for your selected ship or your group against it (attack, defend, intercept, dock at or go to it) and actions on the contact itself. On empty space it offers to send your selection there, move it there at once, or spawn a ship there.
• Ctrl+click NPC ships to gather them into a group, or Shift+drag a box around them; Ctrl+Shift+drag adds to the group. A bar over the radar then orders the whole group at once, and a group sent to a point spreads out around it rather than piling onto it. Esc clears the group.
• Shift+1 to 9 saves the group as a squad, and the number alone recalls it; press it twice to center the radar on the squad. Squads last for the mission.

More than one Game Master

You can open the Game Master console on several machines at once. Each console keeps its own selection, so one GM clicking a ship does not move another's, and each switches Comms Intercept for itself. An NPC holds its answers while any console is intercepting, so every console sees the held hails: the intercept button is green while yours is on and yellow while only another GM's is. A console that reloads comes back as itself, intercept and all, if it returns within about thirty seconds.

Saved games and saved vessels

The Saved Games tab, shown between missions, holds two kinds of save. Saved missions are what Save writes; open one to read it, then load it to pick the session up where it was, or delete it.

Saved vessels are single player ships. During play, a player ship's detail panel has SAVE VESSEL, which keeps its name and its fit, with a note. Tick Include its current state to keep its hull and armor, damage, remaining ordnance, cargo, crew and credits too; leave it off and a ship built from it is factory‑fresh with that fit. Before the next launch, open a saved vessel and assign it to one of the staged mission's ships, or pick it from the top of that ship's class list in the Assignments panel. That ship then launches as the saved one, within the classes the mission allows for it; a save that kept its state can still be launched fresh. Only the Game Master console can save or assign vessels.

Debug mode

The debug toggle turns on extra reporting across the consoles. It is a development aid, and it changes what players can see, so leave it off during a session unless you are chasing a specific problem.

Practical advice

• Check the assignments before you launch, not after. A player bound to the wrong vessel will spend ten minutes assuming they misunderstand their console.
• Pause is cheap. Nothing is lost by using it, and a paused game is much easier to explain something in than a running one.
• Save at the interesting moments. Before the ambush, not after it went wrong.
• Watch the crew, not the panel. Objectives and encounters advance on their own; the reason to have this console is to react to what your players actually do.